Journalism Students Bound for Ireland as Part of Religion Course

As Columbia aspires to become a global university, one course transports students across the planet.

Members of Covering Religion at the School of Journalism will travel to Ireland this spring break. Ari Goldman, a former religion reporter for the New York Times, created the seminar course in 1993 as part of his plan to put religion reporting on par with national, international, and science reporting at the school.

Initially, Goldman said, the course had trouble garnering students. “The number of good news stories for religion writers has increased since then,” Goldman said, explaining that it encouraged tremendous growth for the Covering Religion course.
The Scripps Howard Foundation, a chain of newspapers, “wanted to see religion taught better, to a broader audience with more resources,” he added.

Goldman has taken aspiring reporters abroad for the last six years. “At first they [Scripps Howard] let me bring in some guests. ... Since 2000 they’ve been giving me enough money to travel.” Goldman gestured toward his office walls, covered with class pictures from each trip: one from India, two from Israel, one from the American South, and two from Russia.

“The program enables my class to go where religion is happening, places where it’s changing society and sometimes ruining society,” Goldman said.

But with funding for only 16 students, entrance to Covering Religion is highly competitive. About 50 students attended a debriefing session about the course, which featured Niall O’Dowd along with Goldman. O’Dowd, who helped lead an Irish-American peace delegation during Bill Clinton’s presidency, is the founder and editor of the American newspaper Irish Voice. He and Goldman will teach the course in Ireland together.

Goldman said students applying for the seminar must write an essay explaining what they have to offer in the classroom and on location.

“I take people who would take Covering Religion even if it wasn’t a trip,” he said, chuckling. “Don’t just take this course because you want a free ride. ... I try to take people who are genuinely interested in religion and people who might want to be religion writers.” Goldman pointed to a photograph of himself surrounded by Covering Religion alumni at his class at the Religion Newswriters Convention.

In the first half of the spring semester, students will spend Mondays in the classroom learning about different religions. On Tuesdays, they report in New York, a testing ground for the upcoming trip. “New York has got everything,” Goldman said. “We went to India, but before we went to India, we went to Queens.”

Each day on location, the group files one story to its Web site, coveringreligion.org. Once they return to Manhattan, each student writes at least two feature stories based on their reporting, yielding “about 100 stories in total,” Goldman said.

Goldman said the trip fosters personal and professional growth. “That’s what we do as journalists. We have to open ourselves up to things that are different,” Goldman said. “If you’re from one tradition and you can be put down in the middle of India and write about something else, then you can go anywhere in the world.”

When a secular Jewish student who went on the trip to Israel was assigned to cover the Chabad house in Crown Heights, he emerged unexpectedly bar mitzvah-ed. On the same trip, another Iraqi Muslim student, who was able to come to America just after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, became the first Iraqi to enter Israel in 30 years, Goldman said.

“I turn out very talented people who are capable of writing stories in different situations. It’s not the articles they write for me. I’m unlocking some potential that enables them to be great reporters.”

This spring, Goldman will be able to add a picture of Ireland to his wall. “It’s a good way to keep my passport fresh,” he said.

Joy Resmovits can be reached at joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com.